


Captain by Force

by Josey (cestus), junko



Series: Shattered Souls [11]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestus/pseuds/Josey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things don’t look good for Renji.  Will he be able to conquer the beast inside or will Urahara and the gang have to do something drastic?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain by Force

**Author's Note:**

> This is a canon divergence that takes place after the Aizen’s betrayal and before the Bount Arc.

After the prophesied hour had passed, Kisuke wondered if, despite their best efforts, they had actually been far, far too late. Ichigo must have had the same thought because he tightened his grip on Zangetsu and said, “Okay. I’m going in.”

Shinji shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, leaving it up to Kisuke to make the call yet again, the bastard.

Just as Kisuke was about to nod to Hachigen to let the Ichigo through, Orihime asked, hopefully, “Is that… a crack?”

"Could be," Ichigo replied, peering through the barrier.

Was it? Moving as close as he dared, Kisuke saw what Ichigo had indicated. Just below the line of the cheekbone, Abarai’s mask had a hairline crack. Bits of bone seemed to flake and crumble. His clawed hands seemed to be trying to reach for it, to pull at the widening fracture.

“C’mon, Renji,” Ichigo, meanwhile, had stepped back, and murmured what they were all thinking: “You can do it. Come back to us, goddamn it.”

#

Renji was getting battered by sheer ferocity. Pushed so hard he couldn’t breathe.

But, the part of him that had been Academy trained saw it―homed in on the weakness. The other was random, almost careless, in his attacks, and finally, he got in too close. Renji was able to pull up his foot and land a perfect front kick in the other’s gut. He didn’t waste time. The second there was room, he ran his hand along the length of his zanpakutō to draw out Zabimaru.

“”You don’t need to call it out? Does this mean you have bankai, Renji?’” The other did a perfect mock of Byakuya’s formal speech patterns, while exaggerating an expression of pure shock and horror. “He never even fucking uses your surname. At least he knows your name at all, huh? If only you were actually something he deigned to notice! Not that it mattered. He never faced you bankai to bankai, man to man. I guess having class means being so honourable that you immobilize your opponent with magic before you kick ‘em in the balls.”

Even though it was difficult, Renji ignored the other’s constant taunts. He let Zabimaru whip forward to slash at the other. The other parried the first, dodged the second, but seemed to let the third cut him as he flash stepped in closer. Renji couldn’t retract Zabimaru fast enough; he had twist out of the way of the other’s thrust. Steel hit stone wall with a scraping sound.

But, Renji was able to use his momentum to spin―a move, ironically, worthy of the captain―and came up behind the other. He flung one arm around the other’s sword arm, pinning it close to his body, and pressed Zabimaru’s jagged edge to his throat with the other. “You don’t get to be my captain with shit-ass moves like that,” Renji said with a growl into the other’s ear. “You think the Soul Society put me on a leash; I say they taught me discipline--how to be more than just raw, wild power.”

“Ha! They neutered you! You’re nothing more than a dog of the military, a tail-wagging fool who goes wherever his masters command.”

“If that were true,” Renji said, letting the blade bring a well of blood at the point the tooth pressed. “I’d have only followed orders. I would never have helped rescue Rukia.”

The other’s laugh was maniacal. “You’re proud of that? You couldn’t even do it by yourself. You had to beg some stranger to step in, because you knew the captain would wipe the floor with your sorry ass.”

Renji shook his head. “Yeah, and I fought him anyway. I might have won, too. Someday I will.”

The other squirmed and fought, as he spat, “He’ll just cheat.”

“It’s not cheating to use all your advantages in a fight,” Renji said. Holding the struggling other became a little easier as he felt a surge of strength as his spiritual pressure rose. “Tell you what, though. You and I can agree on one thing. I think the captain was full of shit about all that class nonsense. But, those were just empty words. He was the one howling at the moon then, because it was all bark, no bite. No matter what he said, he saw me as serious threat. Kuchiki-taicho fought me with everything he had--all the kidō, all the speed, and all the skill. He didn’t hold anything back. And that’s all that really matters: actions.”

Renji looked over at a bark yelp from Zabimaru. The albino nue had the black-furred demon on the ground; Zabimaru’s teeth were in its neck.

“He put your nose in it and then he smacked you with a rolled up newspaper.”

“No,” Renji said. “I’m trying to explain this to you: he didn’t treat me like his dog. He treated me like a worthy opponent. And that’s what I was going to say to him when he woke up. I was going to thank him for not pulling his punches.”

“Oh my god, you’re so pathetic.”

“Whatever, asshole,” Renji said, letting Zabimaru cut across the other’s throat. “I win. Only someone stronger than me gets to be my captain.”

#

Kisuke nearly swallowed his tongue when Abarai lurched to his feet and sliced across his own throat with Zabimaru. Beside him, Orihime screamed and Chad let out an abortive yell as, rather than blood, it was bone that spilled from the wound.

The entire hollowfication disintegrated, sheeting from Abarai's body like snow from a tree in the morning sun. Abarai emerged, panting frantically, his face pale and hands trembling where they were clenched around Zabimaru's grip. He jammed the zanpakutō into the ground and, going by the way his legs were trembling, it was taking the majority of his weight. His hair was loose, a wild mop of crimson that clung to his neck and shoulders and the only thing holding his shihakushô together was few strips of cloth across his chest. Any other time it would have been a sight for sore eyes, but his reiatsu was so low that it was almost non-existent, and he was peering around as though he had no idea where he was. Or possibly who he was.

The barrier flickered out of existence and before anyone else could move, Shinji was there beside Abarai, supporting him and helping him stand. The fukutaichō looked stunned, and Kisuke knew how he felt. That had been close. Far too close. Hanging up his spurs and retiring to a desert island close. 

He staggered a few steps backwards, came up against a rocky overhang and permitted himself a brief sit-down.

Shinji was saying something to Abarai, something urgent going by his body language though Kisuke was too far away to hear the details. After a moment or two, Abarai must have replied in a way that seemed to satisfy the Vizard. He nodded, said a quiet word back and then put his palm up to Abarai's face. The fukutaichō's legs went from under him and Shinji caught him as he went down.

"That's what he did to me," Ichigo said pointing Zangetsu at the pair. 

"It's called tanma otoshi," Kisuke explained. "It's a kido that puts someone to sleep for a while and if Shinji saw fit to use it on you and Abarai, it's his right and prerogative."

Ichigo spun slowly towards him on one heel, staring at him as though seeing him for the first time. Kisuke sighed, here it came. Ichigo was too accustomed as seeing Kisuke as the man in charge for that statement not to be questioned.

"Who is he?" Ichigo asked. "You called him a Vizard but what the hell does that even mean anyway?"

Was this his story to tell? Not really, but then Abarai’s recent experiences were an example of what happened when people kept secrets. Perhaps now was the time to break that cycle. "They're some of Aizen's experimental subjects that survived," he explained. "I don't know how much Aizen said about my research into hollowfication but all my subjects were volunteers. His weren't. 

"Aizen didn't care who died, so long as he could continue his experiments. He took to using souls in the Rukongai and, when patrols were sent to investigate, he used them as well. One particular night, he, Ichimaru and Tousen together conspired to hollowfy four captains and four lieutenants." 

It was strange how his memories of that night were so clear. He could remember their screams as though it was yesterday. Smell the stench of hollows. And blood.

"Tessai and I discovered them but unfortunately not before the experiment had started. We managed to rescue them and get them to the real world but we couldn't reverse the hollowfication completely. They eventually found a way to control it themselves." He inclined his head towards Shinji, who'd wandered over with Abarai over his shoulder like a particularly large and tattooed sack of rice. "I am hoping that they will teach you the same thing."

"Oh we'll teach 'em, all right," Shinji said, patting Abarai affectionately on the backside, then he grinned maliciously. "They're not gonna like it though."

Ichigo's eyes widened and he took a step back. Kisuke ducked his head to hide a smile. Shinji was going to be good for Ichigo, he could tell. Much better for him than an ageing scientist with dodgy morals. "At least let the fukutaichō heal first, Hirako-san," he said, reverting to his fluttery persona since he knew it irritated the hell out of Shinji.

Shinji glowered at him, then slid Abarai off his shoulder and draped him across Kisuke's lap. "All yours then. I'll take this one." He slung an arm round Ichigo's shoulders. Ichigo gave him the stink eye, trying, and failing, to shrug him off. "I don't suppose your pretty little friend over there'll join us, will she?" Shinji continued, adding in all seriousness. "She was my first love, you know."

Ichigo elbowed him in the gut, sending Shinji dramatically to his knees, coughing and gasping for breath while Ichigo harangued him about the inappropriateness of a man his age making comments like that about a school girl. Orihime watched them, hands clasped in front of her, apparently charmed by the whole affair, while Sado looked on, a half smile curling his normally impassive lips.

Oh yes, Kisuke thought, watching the performance, they were all going to get along marvellously. 

He left them to it, standing up and sweeping Abarai off his feet like a fainting maiden, then shunpo-ing to the steps. When he got upstairs, he discovered the sun already high in the sky and Tessai up a ladder, Jinta and Ururu standing below holding boards and nails. Kurōdo and Kon in Ichigo's body were helping them and the mod soul currently occupying Renji’s gigai sat on the front step, cradling his head in his hands as though he were nursing the worst hangover. The air was filled with the sounds of hammering and bickering voices. 

The fear of the past few hours slowly drained away as Kisuke put Abarai to bed in the small storeroom he used to sleep in, and settled down beside him to keep watch. Not that anything untoward should happen, he just didn't feel ready quite yet to let the man he'd almost killed out of his sight.

#

Renji wanted to wake up, but couldn’t. He had a lot of questions that needed answering, but someone had put a sleep spell on him, and, if there was one thing he couldn’t counter, it was kidō.

So he was stuck in his own head, in a quasi-dream state… with a giant albino nue doing its damnedest to cower in a corner.

It didn’t help matters that his subconscious was far from subtle. He and Zabimaru were jammed together in the narrow dorm room Renji had shared with Kira his last year of Academy. It was the year he’d finally been reunited with Zabimaru and the first time he’d had a place mostly of his own. He’d decorated his side of the room with recruitment posters he’d collected from all Thirteen of the Court Guard Divisions.

Only unlike then, now each one held a single word: BETRAYED.

Renji stopped pacing to scowl at Zabimaru. The nue had shoved most of its bulk under the desk. It tried to cover its giant head behind its paws. It was hard to stay mad at such a comical image that reminded Renji far too much of the baby monkey in the hot springs.

It would be nice to be soaking sore muscles there right now. Soon, he hoped. Renji suspected the reason they weren’t back in his comfy inner landscape had a little to do with the sleep spell, but even more to do with the fact that he and Zabimaru needed to talk first. “Okay,” he said. “I guess it’s a little obvious how I’m feeling.”

The nue shifted, scrunching up as if trying to wedge more of itself under the desk.

With a sigh, Renji sat down on what had been Kira’s bed. In his dream-memory, this side of the room smelled of laundry soap and the fresh ink of new books. There was an almost visible line that divided Kira’s neatly ordered possessions and Renji’s chaos and mess. Kira owned a lot more things, but they were all tucked into their proper places. Renji stared at his unmade bed covered with library books scattered haphazardly everywhere.

“Some kind of secret mission, right?” Renji asked the unusually silent nue. “You tried to tell me about it, but I was already too far gone.”

The snake’s head pushed its way through fur and out the side of the desk and bobbed its head. “Yes, to find the Vizards or information about them. We never meant to keep secrets. But… it was our chance. We felt special, chosen.”

It didn’t really surprise Renji that his zanpakutō was as anxious to prove itself as he was. They were both ambitious to a fault. So, of course, Zabimaru would jump at a chance to distinguish itself as more than just a brutal tool.

It was all Renji ever wanted too.

“So… who gave you this assignment? It couldn’t have been our captain,” Renji couldn’t imagine Byakuya crouching beside his cot in the middle of the night secretly communing with Zabimaru. In fact, Renji was pretty sure that the captain would consider addressing anyone’s zanpakutō directly far, far beneath his esteemed personage.

Renji rubbed the back of his head, trying to fathom how this could even have happened. The whole scenario that led up to this moment seemed bizarre. After all, what kind of crazy would it take to think of contacting a zanpakutō directly and by-pass talking to the soldier wielding it?

The posters on the wall shifted. Now they recruited for the Twelfth. 

Kurotsuchi Mayuri.

Renji stared at the writing on the wall. Of course part of him―notably the part that was Zabimaru―had known all along. Only that crackpot Kurotsuchi-taicho would think sneaking around behind someone’s back to make a secret deal with half their soul was a good idea. Now the image of that blue-haired, kabuki-painted freak crouching over him while he slept made Renji’s skin crawl.

The baboon lifted his head, then, and snarled. It had clearly been brooding for a long time, and it finally spoke: “I think… perhaps we were mistaken in our assumption.”

The snake tail looked surprised, and twisted around to catch the baboon’s eye. 

“What if we only thought Kurotsuchi-Taicho was talking to us?” the nue explained to its tail. Its deep voice was an irritated grumble. “Perhaps our bond surprised everyone. Maybe when Kurotsuchi whispered codes and plans in our ear, it was meant to be subliminal for Renji―and the captain had no idea we were there as always, listening.” The nue looked up at Renji then. “Kurotsuchi probably expected you to search the computer in your sleep and send back the information unthinkingly.”

Renji snorted. “Because, what? They can’t trust me with a simple mission? I suck that much as a spy?”

Both halves of the nue gave him a look.

“Yeah, okay.” Renji could admit he was a pretty terrible liar, and he couldn’t keep a secret to save his soul. It also made more sense than the alternative. How could anyone have anticipated that Renji would offer Zabimaru a gigai of its own. Even Urahara had seemed surprised by that. The funny part was that even now, despite everything, Renji didn’t regret giving Zabi its freedom. He still thought that, in theory, it had been a good idea to let Zabimaru have a chance to stretch and grow.

Because they had.

The nue was definitely bigger. A lot bigger. And they had a few more stripes, too.

Renji had noticed the change in their first few hours together, when he’d frantically combed through Zabimaru’s fur, searching everywhere for a sign of a hole. It had been a huge relief to find the nue entirely intact.

Of course, he appeared to be too. Zabimaru’s presence had filled him up. 

Renji let go of the last of his hurt and resentment with a long breath. Glancing at the posters and Kurotsuchi’s maniacal grin, Renji asked, “So, did you do it? Was the operation a success?”

The problem was, of course, Renji’s memories of the day’s events were strange now that he and Zabimaru had merged again. From Zabimaru’s perspective, Renji now had an image of himself with a bony mask and a wild, whipping toothy tail that had the ability to shoot… ceros? There had been claws and talons and far too many spikes. 

Zabimaru shifted under the desk again, making the wood creak dangerously. Even the tail seemed to want to hide. It slipped its head under the covers of Renji’s bed. “The gigai,” the baboon head mused, as though embarrassed, “Was very attractive to the right person, though perhaps too much so. We would have been… very distracted from our goal if the Vizard in question hadn’t sniffed out our soul.”

Renji couldn’t suppress a wicked grin, “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you were too busy trying to get laid to stay on target?”

The baboon head made a sound that sounded like a cough.

“Ha!” Renji said gleefully, “And they were worried I was such a shitty spy!” 

The room shifted out from under Renji’s feet then. As the bed faded, he splashed backwards into the hot springs pool. When he came up he was sputtering, spitting out a stream of slightly sulphur-tasting water. 

The nue huddled shoulder deep in the steamy water. Snow clung to the fur over his brows and the tail sluiced back-and-forth happily, like a water snake skimming along the surface. Zabimaru glared at Renji. “We found them… eventually,” the baboon murmured. “Mission accomplished.”

Once he coughed the last of the water from his throat, Renji teased, “You horny old dog!”

“Nah, that would be me,” said a rasping voice.

Renji glanced up to see the other, Stray Dog, crouched on a rocky outcropping over their heads. “Oi, I thought I killed you!”

The ratty figure snarled, bounding away to disappear among the mountain crevasses.

“He’s not dead,” Renji repeated, this time to Zabimaru, jerking his thumb in the direction Stray Dog had scampered. “What the fuck? I sliced his throat.”

The snake stopped its joyful slashing to hiss, “Unfortunately, he’s a part of us now. Just like the black nue.”

“Great,” Renji grumbled, shaking out the snow that had collected in his hair. “That’s just great.”

“He hides because he knows we have the superior strength,” the baboon king said, as it swam closer to where Renji leaned his arms out on the rocky lip of the pool. “We will simply have to continue to conquer him.”

“Kick his ass more like,” Renji said, lifting an arm as Zabimaru snuggled underneath it. The nue’s wet fur was warm with the heat of the springs. Renji breathed in the smell of its familiar scent.

“That, too,” the snake tail agreed.

As he tipped his head back to relax into the warmth, Renji wondered what it meant to have some Hollow-self running around in his soul. The hole had gone but had all the rest of it? He didn’t feel the same ravenous hunger or the same rage, but would he when he was in this place? What if, when he woke up, his first instinct was to start slitting throats?

Water trickled into his ear. Renji shook his head and stuck his pinky in, screwing it around. “Hey,” he said, once he could hear properly again. “You think we could take out Urahara? You know... if we needed to.”

Zabimaru snorted bubbles. “No,” the nue said simply. “You remember his princess.”

Renji did, very well. That was the end of that then. He’d just better make sure everything was fixed when he woke up.


End file.
